t and once much-frequented Walnut Bend, and set it
away back in a solitude far from the accustomed track of passing
steamers.

Helena we visited, and also a town I had not heard of before, it being
of recent birth--Arkansas City. It was born of a railway; the Little
Rock, Mississippi River and Texas Railroad touches the river there. We
asked a passenger who belonged there what sort of a place it was.
'Well,' said he, after considering, and with the air of one who wishes
to take time and be accurate, 'It's a hell of a place.' A description
which was photographic for exactness. There were several rows and
clusters of shabby frame-houses, and a supply of mud sufficient to
insure the town against a famine in that article for a hundred years;
for the overflow had but lately subsided. There were stagnant ponds in
the streets, here and there, and a dozen rude scows were scattered
about, lying aground wherever they happened to have been when the waters
drained off and people could do their visiting and shopping on foot once
more. Still, it is a thriving place, with a rich country behind it, an
elevator in front of it, and also a fine big mill for the manufacture of
cotton-seed oil. I had never seen this kind of a mill before.

Cotton-seed was comparatively valueless in my time; but it is worth $12
or $13 a ton now, and none of it is thrown away. The oil made from it is
colorless, tasteless, and almost if not entirely odorless. It is
claimed that it can, by proper manipulation, be made to resemble and
perform the office of any and all oils, and be produced at a cheaper
rate than the cheapest of the originals. Sagacious people shipped it to
Italy, doctored it, labeled it, and brought it back as olive oil. This
trade grew to be so formidable that Italy was obliged to put a
prohibitory impost upon it to keep it from working serious injury to her
oil industry.

Helena occupies one of the prettiest situations on the Mississippi. Her
perch is the last, the southernmost group of hills which one sees on
that side of the river. In its normal condition it is a pretty town;
but the flood (or possibly the seepage) had lately been ravaging it;
whole streets of houses had been invaded by the muddy water, and the
outsides of the buildings were still belted with a broad stain extending
upwards from the foundations. Stranded and discarded scows lay all
about; plank sidewalks on stilts four feet high were still standing; the
board sidew